No Place to Die (4 page)

Greater Phoenix stretches some forty-five miles from north to south and sixty miles from east to west, in a valley originally settled by the Hohokam Indians about three hundred years before the birth of Christ. For reasons not entirely clear—perhaps because fourteenth-century air-conditioning units were so notoriously difficult to service and maintain—the Hohokam abandoned the valley early in the fifteenth century, and it then remained largely empty of population until the first white people settled here in the 1860s.

The metro area now includes a couple dozen incorporated cities and towns, Phoenix principal among them, and a number of unincorporated communities. These cities, towns, and villages originated as discrete entities, but over time they’ve grown and have been fused together into one sprawling urban region that the chamber of commerce markets as the Valley of the Sun.

Maggie and I were on our way to Scottsdale, which lies directly east of Phoenix and which, in the north, is separated from its sister city only by the four- to six-lane concrete expanse of Scottsdale Road. Traffic was surprisingly light for that time of the morning, and thirty minutes after leaving the department, we pulled into the parking lot of a large medical complex near
Shea and Ninety-second, where David Thompson’s office was located.

Thompson’s office manager was a woman named Alice Ballentine. By even a charitable estimate, the woman was probably a hundred pounds overweight, and she’d stuffed herself into a pair of capri pants that she’d apparently purchased at least twenty pounds ago. Her short blonde hair was curled tightly to a perfectly round head, and she was sporting about twice as much makeup and three times as much cloying perfume as a woman twice her size would have needed. Like the receptionist, she’d obviously been crying, and her eyes were red and raw.

Maggie and I introduced ourselves, and Ballentine escorted us back to a small office. She squeezed herself into a chair behind the desk and invited us to take the two guest chairs in front of her. Grabbing a couple of Kleenex from a box on the desk, she blew her nose and dropped the tissues into the wastebasket.

“This is just so unbelievable,” she said. “Why would someone have done it?”

“That’s what we’re trying to determine, Ms. Ballentine,” Maggie said in a sympathetic voice. “Do you know of anyone who was upset with Dr. Thompson—anyone who might have threatened him for some reason?”

Ballentine shook her head vigorously. “No, no one. I’ve been with Doctor for eleven years, and in all that time I never heard him have a cross word with anyone—and I mean that literally. He was an absolutely excellent man to work with—extremely competent, very professional, very personable.

“So many doctors, particularly specialists like Dr. Thompson, have huge egos and very little time and patience for other people. But Doctor wasn’t like that at all. He took a genuine interest in his patients and in his staff. He always had time for others and gave very
generously of himself.” She paused long enough to blow her nose again and to swipe at her eyes with the tissues.

“I gather that the doctor had a very successful practice?” I asked.

“Oh, yes. Doctor was very much in demand. He frequently had to turn down new patients because there simply wasn’t room in his schedule.”

“And none of his patients was unhappy in any way?” Maggie asked. “Or perhaps was there a relative of a patient who might have been upset because he or she felt that Dr. Thompson had not done enough to help someone?”

“No, of course not,” Ballentine insisted. “Unfortunately, like any other cardiologist, Dr. Thompson occasionally encountered a patient who was simply beyond help. It was always a very difficult situation for him, but he always did everything humanly possible on that patient’s behalf. Doctor worked very closely with the families of his patients and was always very honest with them and very supportive of them. None of them ever blamed him for things that were obviously beyond his control.”

“What about in the doctor’s private life?” I asked. “Do you know of anyone who might have been upset with him for something that had nothing to do with his medical practice?”

Again she shook her head. “No, at least not that I’m aware of. Certainly he never indicated anything like that.”

“I gather that, as Dr. Thompson’s office manager, you were responsible for the financial end of his practice?” I said.

“Yes, I am,” she answered tentatively.

“Was the doctor in any difficulty financially?”

She shook her head vigorously. “Oh, Lord no. The practice was very successful, and Doctor was fairly
conservative financially. He’d owned his home for a number of years. He invested wisely, and he didn’t spend lavishly on anything. Of course I wasn’t privy to the details of his personal finances, but I know you’ll discover that there were no problems in that regard.”

“How well do you know Mrs. Thompson?” Maggie asked.

Ballentine stiffened a bit. “A little,” she replied. “In the time that she and Doctor have been married, Mrs. Thompson has been in the office a few times. She’s attended a couple of Christmas parties and other staff functions. But we don’t socialize, if that’s what you mean. She’s quite busy with her own life. I know her mostly through listening to Doctor talk about her.”

“And were she and Dr. Thompson a happy couple?” Maggie asked.

“I guess so,” Ballentine conceded. “Of course they’d only been married for a little over two years, but Doctor still seemed very attracted to her. After he married her, he devoted somewhat less time to his practice than he had in the years before so that he would have more free time to spend with her. I guess if he hadn’t been happy it would have been the other way around, wouldn’t it?”

I nodded. “Ms. Ballentine, one of the problems we’re facing in this investigation is that at the moment, we still don’t know whether Dr. Thompson’s killer might have been targeting him or his wife or perhaps both of them together. Do you know of anyone who might have been angry with Mrs. Thompson? Did the doctor ever hint at anything like that?”

“No,” she said slowly. “Doctor never suggested anything to that effect. But then she is a lawyer, isn’t she? Wouldn’t she be a much more likely target than a respected surgeon?”

Ignoring the question, I said, “Can you tell us about
the families of Dr. and Mrs. Thompson? We understand that neither of them had any children, but what about parents, siblings, or other relatives?”

Ballentine shook her head. “Doctor was originally from Cincinnati. I know that he has an older brother who still lives there and their mother is in a nursing home in Ohio. Doctor’s father died a number of years ago. Mrs. Thompson is a Phoenix native, but both of her parents are deceased. She has a brother and a sister, both of whom are older than her. I believe they both moved away from Arizona some years ago, and I don’t know where either of them lives now.”

I made a note, then said, “One last thing, Ms. Ballentine, and then we’ll let you get back to work. Can you tell us if the doctor ever treated a patient named Alma Fletcher, or perhaps her husband, Robert Fletcher?”

Ballentine shook her head. “Neither of the names sounds familiar, Detective, but I’ll check.”

Maggie and I sat quietly while Ballentine worked with the computer on her desk. After a couple of minutes, she looked up from the monitor and said, “No, Detective. According to our records, Doctor never treated a patient with either of those names.”

We spent another hour and a half interviewing the other members of Thompson’s staff, but none of them was able to give us any more information than we’d gotten from Ballentine. Most of them cried unashamedly during our interviews, but they were at a loss to understand why a killer might have targeted their employer.

As we settled into my Chevy in the parking lot, Maggie shook her head and said, “Why is it that the people who work in hospitals and doctor’s offices always seem to be in worse physical shape than the people who work in offices anywhere else? Most of them are overweight, and half of them still seem to smoke. Christ,
most of the people in Thompson’s office are in worse shape than those slobs in our department who eat three meals a day at the damned Krispy Kreme. What the hell is up with that?”

“Beats me, Maggs,” I replied. “Maybe they figured that when their hearts gave out prematurely from all that bad behavior, ‘Doctor’ could just build them a new one.”

“Maybe,” she nodded, buckling her seat belt. “But if it’s all the same to you, after spending thirty minutes with that Ballentine woman, I’m gonna skip lunch today.”

Judge Walter Beckman left his condominium complex in Scottsdale at ten fifteen
A.M.
Carl McClain watched as the judge wheeled his three-year-old Buick through the gates of the complex and out to Seventy-sixth street. Thirty minutes later, Beckman left the Piestewa Freeway at the Glendale Avenue exit, obviously headed in the direction of his country club.

As far as McClain could determine, the retired widower’s entire life revolved around the club. On the second day that he’d trailed the judge there, McClain had been bold enough to follow him into the pro shop at a discreet distance. Feigning interest in a display of golf shirts, he watched as Beckman signed in at the desk and then went out to the cart-staging area to meet the other members of his foursome.

Figuring that the round of golf would take at least five hours, McClain had checked back at three
P.M.
The Buick was still where the judge had left it, and McClain
found a parking place that would allow him to keep an eye on the car.

At four forty-five that afternoon, he was still watching the Buick when Beckman finally shuffled back through the parking lot. The judge unlocked the car, settled into the driver’s seat, and sat there for a few minutes, apparently waiting for his head to clear. Then he started the car and drove very slowly and carefully back home. McClain had followed Beckman back to the condo complex, driving ten miles an hour under the speed limit and twenty miles an hour slower than the rest of the traffic. Sober as a judge, my ass, McClain had thought.

McClain’s problem was that, on all of the occasions that he’d followed the judge thus far, the old bastard had never had an unguarded moment. The parking lot at the country club was too exposed, and there were always people around. In addition, the escape routes from the club left a great deal to be desired. If he were to do Beckman there, the chances of making a clean getaway in the Econoline would be slim at best.

When not at the club, the judge seemed to spend virtually all of his time in his condominium, which was located within a gated community. McClain figured that ultimately, if all else failed, he could climb the fence late at night, avoiding the guard at the gate and probably slipping by the advertised video surveillance. He could then make his way to the judge’s front door. But that option had drawbacks as well.

It was possible that a camera might catch him going over the fence and that one of the guards might happen to see it on the monitor. Or perhaps one of the other residents might spot him climbing the fence and call the police. Then too, of course, there was always the chance that even if McClain did make it to the judge’s condo unobserved, the old coot might refuse to answer the door at that hour of the night.

McClain reasoned that sooner or later Beckman would have to leave himself in a vulnerable position, but watching the judge signal another turn into the country club, he realized that the moment wasn’t going to come this morning. Still, Carl McClain was a patient man who’d already waited a long time for an opportunity to set things straight. Although the clock was now ticking, he could afford to be patient for a more few days. And on the bright side, he now had Beverly Thompson to keep him entertained while he counted down those days.

Beverly stood glued to the floor of the grimy bathroom for a good five minutes after her captor had locked the bedroom door and left. Finally, when she was sure that she was alone, she went into the bathroom, used the toilet, and then opened the hot-water faucet in the sink. After a couple of minutes, the water was still only lukewarm, and she concluded that it wasn’t going to get any hotter.

She soaked the washcloth and washed herself as best she could. After drying herself with the towel, she pulled the skirt back up, rearranged her bra, buttoned her blouse, and tucked it into the skirt.

Beverly hardly recognized the image that stared back at her from the filthy mirror above the sink. Her hair was in complete disarray. Her eyes were puffy and red, and her left cheek was swollen and bruised from when the man had slapped her after shooting David. Looking at herself, she began crying again. Then she shook off the tears, realizing that she needed to make the best use she could of whatever time she had to herself.

The mirror fronted a small medicine cabinet, and Beverly opened it but found the cabinet empty. A cheap fiberglass shower module had been installed in the corner of the bathroom, and the shower curtain was
threaded over a piece of pipe that had been wedged into notched-out two-by-fours bolted into the wall above the module. She pushed the curtain aside to find the shower empty as well. The only implement of any kind in the bathroom was a plunger with a cracked wooden handle that was sitting next to the toilet.

Reaching above the toilet, Beverly ran her hands over the small piece of plywood that had been nailed over the window. Six large nails with flat heads had been driven through the plywood into the window frame. There would be no hope of prying the plywood away from the window without a clawhammer or a crowbar of some sort.

Dragging the cable behind her, she went back into the bedroom. The only pieces of furniture in the bedroom other than the bed itself were a card table, two folding chairs, the small nightstand, and a lamp that sat on the nightstand. Beverly pulled open the three drawers of the nightstand. Like the medicine cabinet, they were all empty.

She sat on the bed for a moment, staring at the glass of juice and at the cereal, which was already getting soggy in the milk. She suddenly realized that she’d had nothing to eat since lunch yesterday, and even though she had no appetite, she knew that if she had any hope of escaping, she would have to maintain her strength.

She forced down the cereal and drank half a glass of the juice. Then she folded her right leg up onto the bed so that she could examine the cable that was bolted to her ankle. The cable appeared to be about a quarter of an inch in diameter and was secured to a metal cuff that was about three inches wide. The cuff was hinged at the back and the two wings were bolted together at the front of her ankle. The short thick bolt was secured with a square nut. There was only an inch of play between the cuff and her ankle—not nearly enough room
to allow her to somehow squeeze her foot out of the cuff.

Gripping the head of the bolt with her left thumb and forefinger and the nut with her right, Beverly tried to unscrew the nut, but succeeded only in cutting her finger on the rough edge of the bolt. The man had obviously used wrenches to tighten the nut to the bolt, and without wrenches there would be no way to loosen it.

She got up from the bed and examined the other end of the cable, which was secured to a ring in the floor by another thick bolt. As was the case with the ankle cuff, only someone with a wrench would be able to undo it.

The cable was long enough that Beverly could roam the entire length and width of the small room. Moving around the room, she tentatively pressed her fingers into the pink insulation, testing carefully, and discovered the two bedroom windows. Like the one in the bathroom, they had been sealed with plywood.

She saved the door for last. Careful not to touch it, she examined it carefully. The dead-bolt lock looked new, and from the inside it could be opened only with a key. But even if she had a key, would she dare to open the door? Was it really wired to explode, or had the man threatened her with that only as a means of keeping her from attempting to open it? She remembered the sound of the metallic click after he had closed the door. What had he done? Beverly got down on the floor and looked closely at the tiny gap between the floor and the bottom of the door. But she couldn’t see anything on the other side.

Discouraged, she walked back and sat down on the bed. Staring at the door, she thought of David slumping to the floor of the garage and began crying again.